272 REPORT ON NATIONAL HIUSEUM, 1886. 



A series of the American stone Thomsonite, found as pebbles in the 

 Lake Superior region, presents some fine cut stones, with the circles 

 from one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch across. A few large, pol- 

 ished pieces measure over 1 inch across. Some pebbles of Lintonite, 

 a green variety of Thomsonite from the same lo<;ality, are also polished. 



The quartz array is very instructive. It begins with a 2ji-incli Japan- 

 ese crystal ball, and an eagle seal 3 inches liigh, of Russian cutting; a 

 smaller ball and a combination form of the cube and dodecahedron, 

 from Jai>au, half of a Brazilian pebble, polished, a mounted scarf-pin, 

 cut in cuboidal form, and a small pendant complete the display of rock 

 crystal. Cut citrines, cairngorm, and the so-called smoky, Saxon or 

 Spanish topaz, elev^eu of the dark-purple amethysts from Siberia, often 

 wrongly called Oriental amethysts, and a set of seven from Brazil show 

 all the changes from light pink to dark purple. 



Perhaps the most unique gem of the collection is a piece of amethyst, 

 that was found in Haywood County, IST. C, and deposited here by Dv. 

 H. S. Lucas. The present form is just such as would be made by a lai>i- 

 dary in roughly shaping a stone preliminary to cutting and polishing it. 

 It now measures 7 centimeters in length, centimeters in width, 4 centi- 

 meters in thickness, and weighs 130.5 grams. It was turtle-shaped when 

 found, and was said to have been worked by pre-historic man. This 

 shape was unfortunately destroyed by chipping it to its present form. 

 It is perfectly transparent, being slightly smoky and pale at one end ; 

 it also has a smoky streak in the center. This coloring is i)eculiar to 

 the amethj^st, however. A line cut amethyst from Stow, Me., repre- 

 sents New England. There are also a three quarter inch yellowish 

 quartz cat's-eye from Ceylon, a 3-carat green one from Ilolf, Bavaria, 

 and a native Indian necklace from Ceylon, composed of numerous yel- 

 lowish quartz cat's-eye beads of about 3 carats each. There has been 

 recently added to the collection a handsonu'. Sinniese ring of cat's-eyes 

 and chip diamonds. The rich gold setting is a model of exquisite Ori- 

 ental workmanship, the reliefs seeming to have been hammered rather 

 than engraved. The handsome embossed flowers within the ring can 

 not be seen in the case. Its crown is a pyramid, 13 millimeters high 

 and 20 millimeters across the base. The base of the pyramid is sur- 

 rounded with a row of fourteen cat's-eyes ; above this is a row of chip 

 diamonds, while the apex is formed of the largest and finest cat'seye 

 of the lot. On each side of the crown, on the shank, is a handsome 

 cat's-eye, next in size to the stone which forms the apex. 



We have, then, a beautiful series of the brown quartz cat's-eyes, so- 

 called crocidolite cat's-eyes (also called tiger-eyes), in fine slabs, balls, 

 buttons, etc., which is really a combination of crocidolite fibers coated 

 with quartz. This incasing renders it harder than unaltered crocidolite, 

 which is to be seen here together with it. Alongside of these are four 

 handsome stones, cut cabochon, and artificially colored pink, purple, 

 green and gendarme-blue, after the extraction, by a strong acid, of the 

 original coloring matter from the quartz casing. All these are from 



